


i am the one you left for dead

by xrsenic



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Post-Canon, World War I, no beta we die like tom, slash if u rly squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25910497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xrsenic/pseuds/xrsenic
Summary: He was never comfortable anymore.  He wasn’t before, he tried to remind himself; he had never been comfortable.  This was war.  Comfort was a foreign thing, a trifling, fleeting desire.  But now he was gone.  Three steps back.  An outsider looking in.  An interloper in his own body.Or, in which Schofield drowns.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	i am the one you left for dead

**Author's Note:**

> hi yes hello im glad to see this fandom is still alive & well (?). was a bit worried i missed the jump. anyway this is the first fic im posting to ao3 & ofc it has to be a mopey drabble. nonetheless, i hope u enjoy.
> 
> title is from the cliché indie classic spiderhead.

Some days, the guilt was a weight on his chest. A pressure rested there, a foreign body laying across his own. Like the air was being crushed out of him ever-so-slowly. As if his lungs were made of lead. Drawing each breath hurt, and sometimes it was too much just to sit. Everything felt shriveled, crushed, packed into a tin. Constricted, confined. His heart pounded against his ribs, and he counted each beat if only to remind himself he was still alive.

He deserved it.

Other days, he felt scraped hollow. As if he’d never made it out of the med tent after that shelling a few weeks ago. As if the surgeon had taken the scalpel to more than just his calf, had cut him open from sternum to pelvis and inspected his insides. They were black with rot, he was sure. The guilt was eating him from the inside out.

The surgeon had taken his innards out one by one. Intestines first, then kidneys, then liver. Pancreas, stomach, spleen. Then the heart was gone, in its place a raw, trembling cavity where he once could’ve loved. Left only were the lungs. All he could seem to do was breathe anymore. Nothing ached. Nothing hurt. He simply existed; not living, not dead. Empty.

He deserved it.

More than anything, though, he drowned in it. The guilt lapped at his feet first, slow, almost hesitant. Ebbing, flowing; a wary animal. Then the tide rushed in. It flowed over his boots, sinking though the leather, frigid and unforgiving. Up his shins, ripping at his knees. Thighs, waist, chest, neck. Freezing him all the way. Last to go under was always his head. Each time, he wanted to take a deep breath―

_Won’t drown won’t drown won’t drown_

―and each time, he failed. Never could he save himself. He sucked in gulp after gulp of it, filling his lungs and stomach and throat. He breathed in the guilt, relishing the burn of it through his nose and in his eyes, though he’d never admit it to anyone.

He deserved it.

Sometimes, though he always tried to keep his balance when the tide came in, he fell. When he fell, he knew he wouldn’t be able to climb his way out for an awful long time. Comparable to a tank floundering in No Man’s Land, he’d sink despite his efforts. Somehow he’d manage to pull himself deeper. The tide surged faster when he fell, sensing his panic, his pain, his regret.

He would not die. Guilt would flow through him, choking him, wresting the air from his lungs and the feeling from his fingertips, yet he would not die. It never killed him, not physically, and he hated it for that.

If only guilt was as tangible as a bullet, a mortar, a knife. If only.

Perhaps it was purifying him. Purging his sin. Washing him clean of his folly. Perhaps he’d emerge unsullied, reborn. A new man. A blank slate.

But he knew better than that. The guilt would never set him free. He’d die in its vice, whether that time came next week or next month or whenever this bloody war decided it was his time.

He wished it would come soon, his time. The days, no matter how long and grueling, before his―

_Blake’s say his fucking name you coward Blake’s_

―death were tolerable. Now they were excruciating, each second an eternity. Everything was too loud, too quiet. Too chaotic, too still. It’s as if the world was thrown into stop motion after that day, everything off kilter, just a beat too fast or too slow. Disjointed. Unrecognizable.

He was never comfortable anymore. He wasn’t before, he tried to remind himself; he had _never_ been comfortable. This was war. Comfort was a foreign thing, a trifling, fleeting desire. But now he was gone. Three steps back. An outsider looking in. An interloper in his own body.

_His Fault._ It was _His Fault_. Every time he ran it―

_His death Blake’s goddamn death_

―through his mind, every time he watched peach fade to grey, every time he felt the gore turn sticky and start to flake on his palms, every time he clenched the still-warm metal in his grip, it was _His Fault_. There were a thousand things he should’ve done. A million. He should’ve gotten them moving sooner. He should’ve let the dog fight go unnoticed. He should’ve shot that Boche bastard sooner. He should’ve dragged him―

_Blake Blake Blake his name was Tom Blake and he was a boy he was your boy_

―to that aid post. He should’ve, he should’ve, he should’ve.

But he didn’t. He failed. And it was _His Fault_.

Slowly, it dawned on him.

Crushing, dissecting, drowning―they were all the same, really. Just a slower way to die. The guilt would kill him all the same. Maybe he’d never even die on the battlefield, in the trenches, in No Man’s Land. Maybe he’d get to go home, even. His sister would be waiting. His nieces would be waiting.

But Schofield would be dead.

**Author's Note:**

> me? projecting? only a little.
> 
> if u did in fact enjoy pls leave a comment luv u <3


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